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B was looking around for something to make for Erin's birthday. "She likes peanut butter and chocolate." I vetoed the recipe for Buckeyes (essentially peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate) he found on the 'net because it called for paraffin wax. I know that much cheap decorating chocolate contains wax, but I would have no part in it.

Instead I turned to my girl Martha, who requires such ridiculous stages and steps in her recipes, but who has never disappointed me. We found a recipe for what are essentially home-made open top Reese's Cups in Martha Stewart Living Annual Recipes 2003 (p 198).

Since this isn't my recipe, I'm not going into detail here, but if anything is unclear, please let me know in a comment and I'll clarify.

The recipe is fairly straight-forward and doesn't take very long, definately worth it. You melt 12 oz chocolate (Martha says 10 oz, but our favorite cooking chocolate, Ghirardelli's sweet dark, comes in 4 oz bars) in a double boiler, put a spoonful of melted chocolate in a little paper cup and swivel it around until it coats the bottom and sides. Instead of making 30 1 1/2 inch and 12 2 1/2 inch candies, (yes, she asks you to buy two different size little paper candy cups. I told you she is ridiculous. She and I have a foodie-sado-masochistic relationship.) we bought foil cupcake papers and cut them down to be shallow. Made about 25 overall. After we did the first round, we had some chocolate left so we added some more to the sides of the cups. Then you put the chocolate cups in the fridge while you make the peanut butter insides.

In the stand mixer, beat 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, and 6 oz cream cheese (although I would have liked to even it out to 8 oz, to conform to the standard packaging of cream cheese, the end product tastes cream cheesy enough and is the right texture with 6 oz). This is where having a second bowl to your stand mixer is justifiable. Chill the second bowl, then beat 1/2 cup heavy cream until it is whipped cream. Fold the peanut butter stuff and whipped cream together. If you don't have a pastry bag, you can just spoon the mixture into the cups. If you do, outfit a big one with a big star tip and pipe the mixture in. Chill, covered.